At the dawn of an exciting new continental-scale approach to ecology, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) is working with key partners to  develop a coherent strategy that will introduce to the educational community, the opportunities and the data to be available from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON).  Through several related projects, ESA is gathering feedback from (1) faculty on educational needs, perceived obstacles, and recommendations on how to use continental-scale data in the classroom,  (2) minority-serving institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities on their capabilities in connection with NEON-enabled science and (3) digitally sophisticated college students on innovative ways to represent and engage with NEON data. Since education has been conceived as a primary benefit of the NEON infrastructure (NEON Integrated Science and Education Plan, 2006), these projects will help shape NEON’s cyberinfrastructure and educational programming to ensure that continental-scale science reaches the diverse faculty and students in the undergraduate community.

Projects

In collaboration with several partner organizations, ESA proposes to introduce NEON to the education community in several phases.

2008-2009

Faculty development workshops in Washington, DC and Albuquerque, NM.

2009-2010

NCEAS Distributed Seminar (derived from 2008 workshop and with a subset of previous participants)

Faculty development webinars

Campus Speaking Tours

Wired for Youth Workshop

Partner organizations

Please see the Partners page.